Meet our team

George Nianias

Founding Partner & CEO

George brings over 30 years of experience in financial markets. Having started as an SME banker at Citibank London, he went on to became Head of Risk for Fixed Income at SG Warburg and advised the Bank of England on risk themes. George was also senior debt advisor to entities in the UK and across Europe. He was served as CEO and investment manager of an East European SME private debt fund having invested over $1bn which won a global award for Best Credit Fund in 2006. George has also served as a Board Member of JPMorgan, a FTSE 250 trust. He holds a BA in Mathematics from Athens University and a DPhil from the University of Oxford.

George Weir

Founding Partner & Head of Origination

George brings over 30 years of experience advising across both public and private markets. He is a high-growth business and new technologies specialist, having co-founded businesses, assisted early stage companies in raising debt, equity capital and in structuring joint ventures in a range of different industries internationally. George was formerly CEO of Strathclyde University Business Incubator and has advised numerous SMEs through scale up to exit. His expertise with the addressable market includes Strategem (Scotland), Enterprise Lab and Taylor Clarke. George holds an MBA from Strathclyde University.

Anthony Saint

Head of Credit

Anthony brings 30 years of experience in financial markets, having formerly served as an Executive at S.G. Warburg, Republic National Bank of NY and British Arab Commercial Bank. Anthony served as Global Head of Structured Credit at Standard Bank of South Africa for 10 years where he built an international SME lending business from scratch.Anthony has extensive startup experience. He founded a tea business and his own advisory company and was part of the senior management team behind the PE-owned London-based startup Gatehouse Bank, a specialist lender. Anthony is a respected expert in a number of areas of finance and has given evidence to the UK Treasury and been called as an Expert Witness in the High Court in London. Anthony is a graduate of Oxford University and is a Sloan Fellow of the London Business School.

Candice Benson

Head of Operations

Candice brings 18 years of experience in financial services as an Operations and Administration specialist in the UK and The Netherlands. She was former Administrator at BNY Mellon London on the Hedge Funds desk, and worked in different roles in various different hedge fund companies before joining BNY Mellon. Candices holds a BA in Organisational Psychology and Sociology from the University of Cape Town.

Gahtan Vahidy

Partner

Gahtan brings 20 years of experience both as a buy and sell-side investment professional. He has experience in portfolio management, risk allocation and capital raising for alternative finance investment strategies. He began his career as a strategy consultant at PwC and went on to set up Tullett Prebon’s alternative Investment business in the UAE. Gahtan holds a BA from McGill University in Montreal.

Pamina Bou

Director

Pamina brings 15 years of experience in senior P&L roles across multinational and early stage tech companies. She is currently Head of Corporate Development at a mixed reality games development company. Pamina has a wealth of experience working on behalf of buy side funds across debt and equity strategies, and has been an active advisor to Family Offices across Europe. She is fluent in five languages and holds a BA from Oxford University and an MPhil from Cambridge University.

Stephen Robertson

IP Advisor

Stephen is Founder and CEO of Metis Partners, a global IP valuation firm delivering IP valuations, strategy and due diligence. Stephen provides IP valuation and monetization advice to a range of organizations, including business owners, insolvency & restructuring professionals, banks, private equity and VCs on a variety of transactions including IP-backed corporate restructuring and lending across Europe, US and Asia. He graduated with a degree in law before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte. With 30 years’ experience in corporate finance, Stephen is the former chair of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) Scotland and the LES Council Britain and Ireland. He has contributed to European initiatives focused on national policy change. For over a decade he has been recognized as one of the ‘World’s 300 Leading IP Strategists’ by IAM magazine.

Dave Ranyard

Games Advisor

Formerly Head of Sony Playstation’s European flagship studio in London, Dave is a 25 year games industry veteran. Dave worked on blockbuster titles such as VR Worlds for Playstation 4, billion dollar franchise titles such as SingStar, and an array of iconic IPs including Harry Potter, Peaky Blinders, and Sir David Attenborough. He serves on the board of several technology startups and is a long serving board advisor to the Games Developer Conference. Dave holds a PhD in AI from Leeds University.

Laurent Jeanmart

Strategic Advisor

Laurent brings 25 years of investment experience in alternative asset management. He is Founding Partner and Chairman of Katch Investment Group, a USD 1.2 billion private debt management house. Laurent’s previous experiences include responsibilities at Fidelis Insurance Holdings Ltd., a London and Bermuda based insurance company where he was group chief investment officer managing $1.5bn of assets. Previously, he was global head of investment at Platinum Capital Management Ltd., a global asset management platform, where his responsibilities included overseeing the firm’s actively managed funds (hedge funds, equities, volatility, and commodities).
Laurent’s early career included spells at BNP Paribas SA, Lazard LLC, GLG Partners LP, and Signia Wealth. Laurent graduated from Institut d’Etudes Politiques and Institut d’Administration des Entreprises, both in France, from INSEAD (France-Singapore), and is a CFA Charter holder.